


red bell-bloom, in distress

by 100demons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she was young, she used to cut herself for practice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red bell-bloom, in distress

When she was young, she used to cut herself for practice. A carefully sterilized kunai running along the length of her smooth milky white arms, trails of weeping blood welling up in its wake. She was very good about keeping her hands steady, so that the edges of her skin were always cut clean. 

It only took a breath, lungs expanding, alveoli filling, diaphragm drawing all the way down, and focusing it all down into a single concentrated pinprick of awareness, until only the beautiful fireworks of her synapses firing lit up her consciousness, until she could feel the hundreds of millions of quivering connections that made up her being, at once discordant and harmonious. 

Textbooks described it as a measured proportion of chakras, of two parts spiritual energy and one part willpower, control honed into a razor sharp edge from years of study and exacting methodology. Powders ground into dust by mortar and pestle, a scalpel gleaming green with the reflected light of healing chakra, bone white surgical gowns painted over with seals for sterility and cleanliness. 

Tsunade drew her arms to her mouth and tasted the salt of her blood, red tinting the cracks of her milk teeth, her tongue gliding over whole flesh. 

Like breathing, like bleeding, like the rhythmic beat of her heart, urging her ever onward, ever forward, she heals.

**Author's Note:**

> A (belated) post to celebrate three years as a member of the Archive!


End file.
